"However, such a possibility is very small. In all likelihood, I can still help you look after Amy until she is old enough to go to school."
Sherlock said with a relaxed expression.
Eddie, however, did not take it as lightly as he described, his brows still furrowed tightly.
"Where are you going?"
Sherlock looked at the street outside the shop window, where the crowd had gradually thinned, and said softly.
"A place that no one can find."
"No one can find? Then why go there?"
Sherlock waved his hand.
"I already said, it is a possibility, and a very small one at that. No need to ask so much."
Eddie did not continue to press the matter, but Amy, who was sitting next to him, suddenly tilted her head and looked into Sherlock's eyes.
"Will John leave Amy one day?"
Sherlock did not brush off the child; he tilted his head, thought carefully for a moment, and finally answered honestly.
"I don't know if that day will come, but even if I leave, it will surely only be temporary. Just as meetings always lead to partings, partings will always lead to meetings again."
For some reason, Amy's mood seemed to suddenly sour, and she furrowed her delicate brows.
"Amy feels that day won't come!"
Sherlock said jokingly, repeating the same words he had said while playing the game.
"Is it a real feeling, and not just you deliberately deceiving yourself?"
"This time it's definitely real!"
She said with utmost determination, as if cheering herself on.
"Amy's intuition has always been accurate. If you feel it's real, then it must be real."
Sherlock reached out, propped up the corners of her mouth, and helped her force a smile.
But Amy's brows remained furrowed, not relaxing.
After dinner that day, Sherlock made a special trip back to the Leaky Cauldron.
Snape had not yet delivered the magic notebook Sherlock had given him; he still hadn't thought of a good way to do it.
"You had better hurry. We shouldn't be staying in Britain for too much longer."
Snape looked at him.
"Are you planning to leave the Ministry of Magic?"
Sherlock nodded.
"There is nothing left in the Department of Mysteries worth investigating. I need to try somewhere else. I'll likely resign by the end of the month."
"Why must I come with you? I want to stay in London."
Sherlock looked at him earnestly.
"I have been fulfilling the agreement between us. Even though the time hasn't come yet, I've been considering ways to save Lily for you, so I hope you can honour the agreement as well. If I find a way back while I'm out there, and the situation is urgent, it's very likely I won't be able to return to bring you with me. You must leave with me."
Snape pursed his lips. He was silent for a long time, and finally said.
"Then give me two more days. I will send the item over."
"Hogwarts has already started, so remember to be careful when you deliver it," Sherlock reminded him.
"I know."
There were three days left until the end of the month, when Sherlock planned to submit his resignation.
He hadn't been idle these days. Although he had only worked in the Time Room for two months, he still had some research findings left behind. Sherlock compiled these, preparing to hand them over to Madam Selwyn when he left.
Ever since that night, Amy's mood seemed to have been poor. She didn't even have the interest to play games, as if she had returned to how she was before meeting Sherlock.
Every day, she would lie on the table, silently staring at the windmill in her hand, lost in thought.
A child's mood is like that—as unpredictable as the weather in Britain. Sherlock didn't pay much attention to it.
There had been many things happening at the Ministry of Magic recently.
Two days had passed, and the Quintaped in Oxford hadn't been completely cleared out yet; there had even been an injury incident.
Fortunately, the Aurors arrived in time and prevented the Muggle from dying. They wiped the memory afterwards, and the situation didn't escalate further.
But even so, it still gave the Ministry of Magic a massive headache. They specially dispatched more manpower, wanting to capture those Quintapeds as soon as possible to prevent further casualties.
And just on the day when Sherlock had everything ready and planned to submit his resignation, the Death Eaters, who had been silent for a long time, finally came out to commit a crime again.
This time, they attacked the Muggle-born Wizard Leo's family in Scotland and unscrupulously hung them behind flying broomsticks, parading them in the sky.
The Aurors had to dispatch personnel to capture these Death Eaters.
Because of the Quintaped incident, there were only a few Auror squads left in the Ministry.
But even so, Scrimgeour still left two squads to guard the Ministry of Magic, while the others headed to Scotland.
The two teams that remained were led by Barty Crouch Jr. and Eddie, respectively.
Under such special circumstances, Sherlock naturally didn't make a fool of himself by submitting a resignation letter.
He and the Ministry of Magic were on good terms, and even if he were to leave, he would wait until this matter was over.
At nightfall, Barty Crouch Jr., who had volunteered to take charge of the guards on the lower five levels of the Ministry of Magic, was not at his post.
He returned to his office alone, locked the door, and then took out a small box from his drawer. He sprinkled all the powder inside the box into the Fireplace, which had been extinguished for an entire summer.
Dark green flames leaped up in the Fireplace, rising and quickly forming the face of a woman.
"Is the Floo Network connected?"
"You can come over now, but try to have the Aurors in Scotland held back as much as possible. The Dark Lord said I cannot be exposed tonight; I must act alongside the Aurors."
The ghastly green firelight illuminated Barty Crouch Jr.'s pale face. The shadows cast by his gaunt features made him look like a skeleton at this moment.
The woman in the flames sneered.
"Don't worry, those pig-headed Aurors have no idea where we are right now. I will have Rodolphus stay behind with two men. The three of them will be enough!"
"If you think there's no problem, then bring the people over. I'm going to continue patrolling."
After Barty Crouch Jr. finished speaking, he didn't bother with the still-burning Fireplace behind him and turned to leave the office.
The flames in the Fireplace gradually died out, and the entire room plunged into darkness.
This silence only lasted for a few minutes before the Fireplace suddenly lit up with dark green fire again. Then, a Witch with fluffy curly hair, wearing leather clothes, and having a crazed look in her eyes walked out of the flames.
Following behind her, one after another, black-robed Wizards wearing iron masks emerged from the flames.
Soon, this small office was packed with dozens of Death Eaters!
Bella's deliberately suppressed voice rang out in the room.
"You should know what your target is now and where the door to that room is. Let's go now and bring the Dark Lord what he wants!"
Sherlock had not gone to sleep at this time.
He was having tea in his office with Eddie.
"You didn't submit your resignation today?"
"It's a bit too inappropriate at this time," Sherlock shook his head. "Although I don't have much sense of belonging to the Ministry of Magic, I did gain some things here after all, so I can't bring myself to do something like kicking them while they're down."
"Aren't you responsible for patrolling the upper five levels? Why did you come to find me?" he asked.
Ever since Eddie came to Sherlock, he had been acting a bit absent-minded.
"I keep feeling like something is wrong tonight."
He said softly.
"It's as if someone deliberately lured all the Aurors away. The Quintaped matter and the appearance of the Death Eaters in Scotland are all too coincidental."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes.
"Are you suspecting that this time, just like the last time, it was done intentionally by the Death Eaters?"
"My gut tells me it's very likely," Eddie said uneasily. "They want to take something from the Department of Mysteries. They didn't succeed last time, and given the nature of those people, it's unlikely they would give up so easily."
"Didn't you tell anyone else about this feeling?"
"I told Scrimgeour." Eddie's expression was grave. "He felt the same way, but even so, he had to send people out. The shortage of Aurors has always been a problem, not to mention the need to maintain the safety of the entire Wizarding World, so he could only leave two teams in the Ministry."
"Choosing me and Barty Crouch Jr. to stay behind is because we are both trusted enough. I was wrongly accused once before and still didn't turn to the Death Eaters, and Barty Crouch Jr.'s father is Department Head Crouch, so it's impossible for him to be one of the Death Eaters. Scrimgeour arranged it this way to prevent anyone else from leading Death Eaters into the Ministry of Magic."
Sherlock also felt that something was wrong. Usually, whenever the parties involved think an arrangement is foolproof, it is all the more likely to go wrong.
"So you came to me because you're worried that if the Death Eaters break into the Ministry of Magic again, they are coming for the Department of Mysteries?"
"Their goal is very clear. The attack in Wales and the time they had an undercover agent lead people into the Ministry of Magic while chasing me—it was all for this place."
Sherlock also furrowed his brows tightly.
"What exactly is in that room they want to enter? They've gone to such lengths; wouldn't it be more advantageous for them to just attack the Ministry of Magic directly and kill all the high-ranking officials who oppose the Dark Lord?"
Eddie shook his head.
"I don't know the specifics, but during that mission in Wales, I heard the former Department of Mysteries Head, Madam Stredri, say before she died that the room contains something that can change everything, and this thing must not fall into the Dark Lord's hands."
Sherlock rubbed his chin and fell into deep thought, but after trying to recall for a long time, he couldn't remember if he had ever heard of such a thing being stored in the Ministry of Magic before he came to this time.
"Amy is still in the Department of Mysteries!" Sherlock suddenly said. "We can't let her stay here tonight. I'll go take her to the Leaky Cauldron first."
He stood up, and just as he and Eddie opened the door and were about to go to Amy's room, outside the Time Room, a huge explosion suddenly rang out!